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All posts filed under: Clarke Square

Joe Guentner leans against what might as well be a white picket fence in front of his home on South 21st Street. The 64-year-old Guentner, who was the oldest of eight, spent the majority of his childhood in Racine, where his mother was from. “I lived on Lake Michigan … literally on the beach,” says Guentner of the place they lived in Racine. “We lived at that place for a number of years before we had to vacate and they tore it down.”

Michelle Legener stops to ask for a buck near a bus stop at the corner of 22nd and Greenfield. Legener, who grew up near 29th and National, just left the nearby Victory Outreach Christian Recovery Home, a rehabilitation center that takes in drug addicts, about an hour before. “[There are] a lot of good people in this city,” she says, but adds, “a lot of bad stuff happens.”

Charlene Love sits — in white jeans, on a white porch — near the corner of 22nd and Greenfield, relaxing on a warm spring day. The 48-year-old Love was born and grew up in Chicago but in 2009 she came to Milwaukee. “[I] got tired of everything up there and just left,” says Love. “I just got tired of everything, lookin’ at the same old people.”

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